The spatter of blood on her hands look almost too red. Candice didn't hear the cannon fire but she stopped when his face was unrecognizable. Even now, the booming voice filling the arena— and, no doubt, the citizen's homes— proclaimed her victor. Her eyes only now took in the sight of his malformed face. She could see his eyes just barely, but possibly the worst was the gaping hole that previously was his mouth and nose. Dropping her hands to her sides, the rock in her fist clattering to the rubble, she sat back as her eyes locked on the sight of him.
There, gleaming in the maw of the boy from district five, was a perfect tooth. The immoveable joint was gleaming almost as if her blows hadn't affected it at all. Her fingers reached out, pulling at the tooth until it came loose. They were so resilient, usually. They could fall out so easily, yet how had this one stayed? She hadn't noticed that all around her, the planes began to land. The thought occurred to her that they'd want to collect the body, and she pushed herself up, clenching the solid bone in her fist and holding it tightly. This was her prize, and she was their victor. The tooth would join the others, and she would take them away from this place.
The tape clicked over and she flinched. The soft click sounds hauntingly like the mutated birds that swarmed her in her games. Their scars would have marred her arms, had she not had them surgically altered in the capitol. Still, one marked her brow, a hairline scar along the pinnacle of her forehead. The interrogator raised his brow at her and sat back, his hands having finished replacing the tape in the recorder. She slid her hands from the table and ran them over her thighs, relieving herself of the sweat that had accumulated on her palms from the several hours she'd been siting in the steel chair. Her eyes slid down to the folders and papers scattered in front of him, her name written in enormous bold font along the top:
Candice, District 1, 66th victor, Status: Unknown.
Her eyes flicked back to his face and he met her gaze. They remained eye to eye for a few moments before he speaks. "You can continue now, Candice."
Her voice cracks as though she hasn't drank water in a while. It is rough from disuse. "They all want to know what it's like; whether they're curious capitol citizens watching me shine on TV, or therapists who are supposedly trying to crack the casing I've placed around my fragile mind." Eying him again, her lips formed a smirk and she spoke again in hushed tones. Her voice was smoother now, though it still had a gravelly tone to it. "Here in thirteen, there is a lot of time for me to focus on stress release, unwind, you know... They thought it best, some sort of psycho-semantic babble, but I think they're all alike. They all want the gory details and the gruesome bits. Everyone wants to know everything." Her fingers twist and wring her hands, giving her something to do.
"Why did you pull their teeth? They ask, their voices hushed and melodramatic as if they need to keep me calm. As if they were a trigger for me... They're so much more than that." She fingers the tokens strung around her neck, as if taking comfort in their presence. At first there were only ten, then the numbers swelled in the initial fall out at the capitol. Twenty three hung around her neck now, a string of ivory pearls that screamed keep away. "In reality, they keep me grounded; whenever I feel myself slipping, I can caress the curves and edges of the teeth and immediately relax. They kept me connected to the lives I'd taken, to the lives that I had ended." Her voice faded off and broke, her eyes showing clearly that her mind was miles away.
After a while, the interrogator coughed, leaning back in his chair, almost rocking in it. The look she gave him when she locked her ice blue eyes on him shot ice into his veins. He knows she's a killer, knows she could use anything in this room to end his life, and add another memento to her necklace. As if placating her, he held out his hands, palms up and open, in a gesture of peace. Her gravelly voice set the hairs on the back of his neck standing. "I remember the first time they brought me here, dressed me down in the simple clothes and allowed me to wash and feel human again."
A sharp inhale came from him; he knew the gruesome tale, but it didn't seem like she was going to stop any time soon. "A doctor examined me, taking note of my physical scars and recognizing the signs of a deeper trauma. I'd suffered a minor concussion, nothing severe as the boy from four. While my body bore only a few cuts and scratches, my mind was what they were most worried about." A twisted smile passed her lips and she brought her hands down back onto the table, releasing her grasp on the necklace. "They had thought I was a captive in the capitol, not a free citizen. Well, as free as a victor could be. Little did they know, but little did I divulge."
Candice's voice had taken on a strange tenor, and he shot a panicky look at the security camera. He knew that at a moments notice, he could signal to the lens and several guards would interrupt their session. But she'd never opened up like this, not Candice. She was known to keep secrets close at hand, and this was the most successful divulgence they'd had from her ever. He took a steadying breath and leveled her gaze, meeting her half crazed eyes. Her voice continued in its dark tone. "Perhaps the most visually marked symptom of my psychosis was when they tried to take my trophy necklace from me. I remember the doctor distinctly." She blinked, as if clearing of the dark haze that had settled over her. "She had kind, gray eyes, deep as the pools of liquid silver the richest of capitol citizens favored as decorations around their home, and just as mirrored. They reflected my own face back at me, and I was struck by how different I looked."
The fog had settled back in, her eyes losing the look of confusion they'd taken on when speaking of the doctor. "I could see the dirty, shaggy mess that my once pristine blonde hair had become. It hung around my face, wild and unkempt. My face itself was unrecognizable, scarred and gritty, though my eyes were the same. Ice blue gems, sparkling against the cool planes of my war-torn face." Say what you will about the savage beauty, she had a way with words. He scribbled something down in the long, looping shorthand doctors often used and bade her to continue as he looked up at her again.
Candice's face had twisted again, an odd sort of smile on her face as she looked down at her hands. "I'm sure she was saying something of importance to me, or asking me a question. I could hear a soft sort of melodic sound which I can only assume to be her voice, but I don't remember what she could have said." He knew the story from there. The moment the doctor's fingers locked around the smooth ivory, something within the victor snapped.
She was on the woman in a second, hands tearing, her nails sinking deep into the firm flesh that framed the bright gray eyes. The woman's screams had started then, agonizing and pained like a dying animal. Fear was a dense fog, thick and heady, and Candice could feel the blood running over her hands, the flesh sticking under her nails. Pounding a beat, Candice's body settled atop the doctors, her hands acted as though they knew the process. Soon there would be another porcelain gem to collect. The hardly even recognized the howls and screams coming from herself.
Only when two pairs of strong hands pulled her off the woman did she realize they'd stopped. She'd stopped. Her heart pulsed rapidly against her ribs and her hair was a wild mess, but the complete mess she'd made of the doctors face was reminiscent of her victory. The woman before her lay still, but her chest fluttered with a vitality that meant life. A wince crossed her face as a needle was stuck into her arm, but her eyes were fixed on the bleeding mess she'd made with her own two hands.
"She could be lucky they'd trimmed them down when I was washed, because if I'd kept the claws I had in the capitol, her face wouldn't have survived." He could note a sense of pride tinged with something that could be called remorse. As it were, it took three male doctors to get her off of the screaming doctor. Frothing and foaming at the mouth, she was insensible. Her nails carved into her flesh, and torn along her eyes and mouth. "All I knew is that no one would take them from me, no one would dare. Now, they don't talk about it. They don't say a word to me. They let me keep my necklace, but I was shackled for weeks."
With what could be called a shaky breath, Candice straightened her back and looked down at her hands again. Noting they were shaking, he scrawled something down again and she quickly folded her hands in her lap. She lifted her head, extending her neck and pulling herself up straight to her full height. Almost regal, she continued on. "They all couldn't understand how I could keep them, but I couldn't understand how they could turn away from their victims. How could they take someone's life and not be changed by it." Candice's chin quivered as though she was going to cry, but her eyes were dry.
"Well that wasn't true. Most of us were changed by the games. No one came out scarred, visible or otherwise. I simply felt compelled from the moment that I first collected a kill, to keep something of theirs. That way, I could take them away from that place, away from the horror and the tragedy of the games." Her tone became almost pleading with him to understand. "I felt like I was saving them, but I couldn't put that to someone who hadn't been in the games and I was never one for making friends." With a fast gesture, Candice swept her hand across the room. "Talking, feelings, stupid stuff, I never had the time for it, nor did I have the patience for dealing with anyone." Her lip curled almost viciously, her anger seeping back into her eyes. Candice looked down again, gazing at her fist as it clenched on the cold table.
"So tell me about how you won. What you had to do." The deep masculine voice broke through her reverie and she tilted her head up, looking up at him. Her fingers had enclosed along the necklace, holding it tightly. "I had to kill him. Kill or be killed. It was as simple as that."